BOA to close East Freetown location in March due to decreased foot traffic

FREETOWN — Bank of America intends to close its Chase Road location this spring as increasingly popular online banking services and declining foot traffic take their toll on traditional town branch offices, a company spokesman said Monday.

FREETOWN — Bank of America intends to close its Chase Road location this spring as increasingly popular online banking services and declining foot traffic take their toll on traditional town branch offices, a company spokesman said Monday.

"There's been a decline in transactions" at the Freetown bank, spokesman T.J. Crawford said. "At the end of the day, it's a business decision based on costs."

The company would not disclose the number of employees who work at the branch or the number of customers it serves. Employees inside the bank declined to comment.

A letter sent to customers Nov. 16 announced that the Chase Road bank would close March 1 and directed patrons to the Acushnet Avenue location in New Bedford. The letter also laid out a number of options for banking online or by phone.

Crawford said the Acushnet Avenue bank is 7 miles from the one in Freetown and the next closest Bank of America after that is 8 miles away on Faunce Corner Road in Dartmouth.Bank of America leases the building, Crawford said.

The parking lot was mostly empty as a trickle of customers went to and from the Freetown bank Monday afternoon. A pair of longtime customers from Lakeville said the drive to New Bedford would be inconvenient for routine banking errands.

"That's not close at all," said Sandy Howarth, who banked at the Chase Road location for 20 years, even before it was a Bank of America.

"I'm moving out of state, so it won't affect me, but I would likely change my bank" if I was staying, said Lakeville resident Caroline McGrath, who said she'd also banked at the same location since it was a Fleet Bank.

Crawford could not immediately say how long the Bank of America had been on Chase Road.

Bank of America shuttered 178 sites last year and is closing 200 more this year as it slashes 16,000 jobs from its workforce as part of a broad cost-cutting plan, according to The Wall Street Journal. The cuts are expected to drop Bank of America to 2008 staffing levels and give the banking giant a smaller workforce than J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup Inc. or Wells Fargo.

Locally, the company shut down its Rockdale Avenue branch in New Bedford in June. At the time, Crawford told The Standard-Times the company had 270 banking centers in Massachusetts. The company currently has 260 banking centers in the state, he said Monday.